Former Alplaus, NY, post office torn down

The former Alplaus, NY, post office was torn down this week, despite efforts by residents and town officials to save the historic structure.

The Alplaus Fire Dist. No. 2, which owns the property next to the fire station on Alplaus Avenue, decided to demolish the century-old building, which fire commissioners determined was structurally unsound and would have needed more than $250,000 of work to save.

“The district just did not have the money to rehabilitate the building,” said Andy Gilpin, chairman of the district’s fire commissioners. “We did our best to save the building, but we had to fall back to our last position, which was to demolish it.”

The two-story building at 311 Alplaus Ave. was built in about 1906 as a grocery store, but it saw a number of uses over the years, including being leased by the U.S. Postal Service for more than a half-century. But with post offices being consolidated, the Alplaus branch closed in 2012. Local mail delivery is now handled by the Rexford post office. Read more.